We got on the road and drove North along the West Coast of Sri Lanka. We drove fast, as fast as Steve could tolerate given that we were driving on the wrong side of the road, like driving by rear view mirror. The towns rolled by and the shots that I was getting were all blurred. I am not enjoying this; I just watched this world unfold. The towns were mostly one street towns with rows of one and two story buildings with narrow shops squeezed side by side. Spilling out the stores the colors of fruits and vegetables, or in rows, bottles of soft drinks topping each other; some stands were selling clothing and hats or car parts on each side of the street. People in their mixed garb, many of the young boys were in pants and T shirts, women in saris or longs skirts to their shoes, men in shirts and pants or sarongs walked along the road or gathered in groups in front of stands, some women walking with umbrellas of color bursts of red and yellow. I could see it all happening, but would I remember it?
Just as suddenly we were in country-side, the Indian Ocean peeking through the trees to our left. large lagoon opened to our left and we could see across it the silhouette of a Dutch fort near the opening. We reached Puttalam, the point where we left the coast and began to penetrate to Island's depths. We headed East and North and the coco palms gave way to deciduous trees and became more forest-like with open savannas. Open savannas with ponds filled with Lotus pads. We stopped at one to see what we could observe. Egrets, great ones and littler ones, Grey Herons , Little Herons, Asian Openbill, Greenbilled Coucals in numbers. A Brahminy Kite swooped out of a tree into the air gave us a thrill his white head imitating a Bald Eagle. A vivid green parakeet screeched into a bush in front of us and preened in self absorption. A large lizard watched us from a burrow near the road giving us the eye, the right one. In the distance we saw cattle grazing the grass and water buffalo wallowing in the water. Bee Eaters, King Fishers, a Grey-headed Fish Eagle, Red-wattled Lapwings, Black-winged stilts, Pipers, On the other side of the road continuing in the same waters were Ibises, Open-beaked Cranes. Steve and I were delirious. We were not in Kansas anymore. A butterfly landed on a branch announcing the new color pattern for the moment silver, black and orange.
(as I am writing this it is a Sunday later in the journey and a Buddhist chant lofts over the trees of the grounds of our hotel adding a timelessness to the moment)
Our excitement was getting out of hand, we were spotting more and more exotic species. Further up the road Wolley and Steve called out "turtle" and I was out the door as soon as we stopped. I helped him off the road into the bush.He had a high-domed shell blazoned with hexagon patterns each with concentric hexagons, a study in brown and tan. He was fifteen inches and almost the same wide, pretty big and he didn't like me picking him up, so I sent him on. He probably was a tortoise. Now, any day that I come across a turtle is a special day, a turtle day, it makes me happy.
I began to identify a peculiar tree which had a straight trunk and odd flat paddle-like leaves appearing more and more in all sizes except very large. They are ubiquitous enough that they may be important, I will have to check it later.
We continued on and finally reached our destination, Anuradhapura, the site of the oldest remnants of the first culture of Sri Lanka dating back to 300 BC. We drove into the new city and became aware of the military security. Soldiers were placed about fifty feet apart along the roads connecting the sites. Machine gun emplacements were positioned at roundabouts and intersections. Barriers on wheels blocked our lane making us enter the other lane and around the next offering time to look at the vehicle and people within. The war has been over since May, but no chances are being taken. I have taken to waving hello to the more friendly troops and have continued the practice. The entrance to our hotel was near to a military facility and an ancient site, a concentration of military was always there. Our hotel, the Tessawara Hotel, named after a huge water reservoir was originally a British Government Building from the 1890's, and has been a hotel since Independence in 1949. The hotel is on a religious site therefore religious protocol is in force i.e. no alcohol is served. I'm sitting on the veranda in front of our room writing while a first rain of the season washes the dust from the trees and cleans the air. We gave our order for dinner even though it wouldn't be served for a couple of hours. Steve christened the shower. He was moaning in ecstasy over new found love for the shower head he would get for his home in San Francisco. I took my turn and understood what the fuss was about. The shower head was over head pointing down and covered me in hot water like a waterfall; great after a long day on the road. The bathroom was appointed in British Colonial taste in large white tiles and teak details and a solid teak door.The room was simple, almost monastic except for the teak everywhere. The twin beds had posts raising a canopy of netting above and around the bed. We would be safe from mosquitoes.
I wandered the grounds looking at the trees and plants and watched the monkeys. We had seen one on the road from the West Coast and we were all excited, but now the monkeys were part of the landscape. They still fascinated me though; they after all are our cousins, primates and have the good ole' primate intelligence. Running the grounds too, were dogs. Sri Lanka has only one dog, the same from town to town, color variations but the same dog. I watched an employee of the hotel petting the brown one that had befriended me and I went over to him and struck up a conversation. I asked him what the dog's name was and he said there were a number of names, but try as he might he couldn't come up with one. My impression is that they don't relate to animals like we do as if they were personalities with consciousness. The dogs are fed and let to their own devices.
The monkeys on the other hand were not to be fed or encouraged, they are the agents of Kaos. About fifty living at our end of the hotel. They didn't come too close to the veranda, they may have learned a lesson from the employees.
Our first full day in Anuradhapura began at the Archeological Museum where we bought tickets for entry to all the Sacred Sites in Central Sri Lanka, the Cultural Triangle. We were introduced to our guide "Eddie" who was thin yet with a dapper look to his stance. He gave us a tour of the objects found in the sites we were about to visit. Our first look was at a bath constructed with the ubiquitous red brick, just outside the Museum, long and deep with steps around the sides they were the first example of the pervasiveness of the ruins and the first example of the use of the technology of water management. The land of Central/North Sri Lanka is flat, just a few hundred feet above sea level. No hills or mountains to provide water to the area. The first Buddhist King began the system of building "tanks" or reservoirs to store water collected in the monsoon season and to use for agriculture and temple use for the King, the monks in the temple and the people.
It was their greatest accomplishment in my opinion, the water went everywhere and was used to its utmost, ages ago before the idea of conservation. Looming over us in the near distance was the huge Jetavana Dagoba, the third largest man-made building in the world after the two pyramids of Cheops. It's made of bricks, millions of ordinary red bricks into the shape of a bowel turned over, at the top a spire sitting on a lotus flower drawing to a point to the heavens. It was just twenty years ago this huge mass was a mountain covered in earth and trees and plants. In 1982, UNESCO arrived with funding and expertise to reclaim the site. The spire has been broken by some unexplained force. The site as a whole, begun 300BC was developed through a succession of three temples built by three Kings to enhance their power. Each of the great Dagobas were an endeavor to outdo the previous era. Dagobas are like Stupas or Pagodas except Dagobas have a relic of the Buddha entombed within.
Seeing the area from Google Earth I saw before I arrived areas of buildings surrounded by lakes; these are the man-made tanks. They are truly amazing transforming the land with water for humans, animals, birds and plants, changing the atmosphere of the surrounding lands.
We have arrived at the end of the tourist season to the very second, September 30th. There are no tourists about but us. The rice paddies are being burned to charge the land with the remnants of the previous season. The water lines in the great tanks are from 10 to 12 feet above the currant levels, meaning that when the rains come water will be bountiful. It is hoped that the levels will rise to those heights because the conditions lately have been not been optimum.
We are shown many baths for the monks; each temple had up to 3000 monks and many more support people to run the society. Many channels connected the tanks to the network of baths, temples, refectories, fountains and pans for air conditioning the sacred buildings. Each sacred place is still regarded as sacred, meaning that one has to remove shoes and hats to enter. There is a conforming theme to all the buildings in the three evolutions of the temples. The entrances or frontiers at the four cardinal directions have a stone stairway leading to the interior. The railing of the stairwell is carved in high relief into a dragon a "Makala" with spuming fire in a curling-under conflagration. Standing across the railing ends facing outward are two tombstone shaped stones about a yard high carved in high relief a figure of a Goddess or God. They are the Guardian Stones. Between them at the foot of the stairs lying flat on the ground arching outward is a half circle stone carved in concentric half circles of animals, flowers, ducks and wreath designs, the Moonstone. Within the structure facing the entrant would be a figure of the Buddha in a mudric pose. A Buddha for each cardinal frontier. Many of the sacred figures are missing, some temples have only one or it is damaged, but throughout the extensive grounds are many, many sacred sites all with the thematic layout.
With this encounter with the Sacred Sites has begun an encounter with the people. In a word they are enchanted by us, they are amazed. The ones looking to make money by selling are unrelenting in their efforts to make a sale. they speak in a respectful sibilant manner almost in a whisper. Their voices seem to surround and comfort, but they want to sell something that I don't want. There are no tourists. They are not here. The places we visit are empty of customers. I have seen very few disfigured beggars, maybe three and have been accosted by only a couple of women with babies in their arms.
We left for lunch at another hotel which incidentally had the very same idiosyncratic menu as our hotel. I was disappointed to see this. We were told that this hotel was owned by the same group as was ours, I was still disappointed. After eating, Steve, Eddie, Wolley and I continued exploring more of the Sacred Complex. We began at a Dagoba which was still covered with trees and plants at the curve near the top. It was still in the process of being uncovered and restored. All around this site too, were areas of old growth trees and plants covering undiscovered buildings and walls. I felt privileged to see the untouched effect of time upon ancient works. I thought of the many drawings of early European discoveries of the buried Sphinx and temples of Egypt and of the sites of buried Rome, this was my chance to see some of that. Let me state again, ruins are everywhere. Granite support posts protruding in the most unlikely places, walls, mounds. It will be many years before they are all uncovered.
This Dagoba had a network of flimsy scaffolding extending from the sinuous curve near the top of the monument horizontally out beyond the base to a vertical end where at the top could be seen a winch which raised an elevator platform to service the top works. We had arrived at lunch time and the workers were gathered behind us, one of whom approached and offered to take us up. Eddie nixed the idea stating that he would be taken away in 'cuffs. People were up there though, they didn't look like workers. Steve wasn't interested in risking the elevator, I would have gladly done it, but everyone was against it.
The choices made in restoration have been brilliant, It is very hard to identify new brick from old; they emboss the new brick with a symbol to identify as new. The refectory was a place where the great numbers of monks were fed. A water channel brought fresh water into the building where a huge trough of stone eighteen feet long about three feet high and two feet wide lined with copper held rice brought by devotees and held rice as taxes; nearby was another trough about half that size held curry and veggies for the monks. Channels took the waste water into ceramic cisterns, not unlike we use today.
We next visited the Samadi Buddha outside the Citadel, one of the most moving of Buddha figures. From the front and his left side he has a placid and meditative look, from his right side he has a slight smile. This place had many devotees gathered and we were an amusement and a distraction for the children and their parents too. The people were were meeting had such open faces and warm smiles that I have become more outgoing and have been smiling more and waving to people who watch us pass. I am becoming entranced by this charming world.
